What if all the major fantasy worlds, from books, movies, TV, and even videogames, inhabited the same planet? How might they all fit together? Dan Meth tackled this pressing issue and created a wonderful Fantasy World Map incorporating about two dozen of the most well-known fantasy worlds together:

There’s a wide variety of different realms on this giant supercontinent and outlying islands, from Middle Earth (Lord of the Rings) to Avalon (from the King Arthur legends), from Land of the Lost (of the TV series and movie of the same name) to Lilliput (Gulliver’s Travels). I don’t even know some of these places, but most of them are from book series or TV shows. A few of these places were discussed previously in this blog: Narnia, Westeros (from Game of Thrones), Utopia, and Hyrule (from the Legend of Zelda videogames). If you compare the maps, the shapes of Narnia, Westeros, and Utopia are reproduced very accurately. Hyrule’s shape does not quite match the maps from the games, but since Hyrule changes in every game, there is no one shape for it anyway.

Placing all of these fantasy worlds in the same universe raises some interesting questions. Each world has its own rules and its own level of fantasy, after all. Westeros, despite the presence of dragons and some dark magic, is relatively close to reality. Many of its plot lines would not have been out of place in medieval Europe. Meanwhile, just across the sea are realms of high fantasy, like Narnia and Middle Earth. Narnia has talking beavers, lions, and other animals, and Middle Earth has elves, goblins, hobbits, and dwarves. Both of these worlds also feature an abundance of magic, with wizards and powerful rings and doorways to other worlds, and so on.

Once these fantasy worlds exist side by side, how do the rules apply across borders between the worlds? If Aslan, the anthropomorphic lion from Narnia, travels across the sea to Westeros, would he still be able to talk? Could one of the competing factions of Westeros go to Middle Earth and learn magic to bring back with them to take the Iron Throne? Who would win in a fight, dragons or dinosaurs?

Or do magic and fantastical elements stay in their own realm? Each of these worlds was carefully crafted to be a self-contained universe, where the powers and limitations drive the plot. Once you introduce a new element, this throws off the balance and could effectively destroy the world as it currently exists. In order words, Westeros with talking animals is no longer Westeros.

But maybe I’m being too strict. It’s possible that a world can adapt to new elements. In fact, the basic premise behind some fantasy worlds is the addition of a character from a different world, which affects both the character and the new world into which he has entered.

Oronce Finé, French mathematician and cartographer, created this map of the world in 1536. He used the Werner projection, also known as cordiform, which gives the earth a heart-like shape. It looks distorted, but it is actually more accurate than more common projections in some ways, because it keeps correct the distances from each pole and along all parallels. Considering that the Earth itself is round, it makes sense for a 2-D depiction of the Earth to be rounded as well.

Oronce Finé’s Heart-Shaped Map from 1536 (via wikipedia)

This Heart-Shaped Map reflects the imperfect cartographic knowledge of the time, when the world was still being fully explored. If you look closely, you will notice some curiosities. Only South America is named America. Across the top of the land mass at the top, covering North America and Asia, is written “Asia”. Finé believed that North America really was part of Asia, as Columbus had believed, and so he connected the two continents into one in his maps.

At the bottom of the map is another interesting sight: Terra Australis. It has a name that sounds like Australia, but the location and rough shape of the continent of Antarctica. So what’s going on here? Well, Terra Australis (which just means Southern Land) was placed on a lot of maps before any European had discovered either Australia or Antarctica. They simply believed that there HAD to be a big Southern continent to balance out all the land in the North.

What is fascinating is that European explorers would actually find two Southern continents, proving right the hypothesis. Maps during this age featured countless fictional islands and far-off kingdoms that explorers kept expecting to find but never did. But Terra Australis really did exist, even if it was two continents instead of one. Australia was discovered in the coming years, and it was given that name because it was not expected that a more Southern continent would be found. In the 19th century, explorers finally found Antarctica and realized that it was an entire continent, just in the same position as posited by Finé and others. Sadly, Australia had already taken its title away from it, so instead it was named Antarctica (“opposite to the North”).

Of course, I have greatly simplified the history behind all this, so if anyone is interested, please feel free to check out the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Australis

One of the most remarkable cities that I’ve visited is Rome, Italy. I was amazed at how many beautiful and impressive sights there are to see, from all different eras in the city’s long history, stretching back over 2000 years. There is the mostly intact Colosseum, which held gladiator battles in the days of ancient Rome. There are countless churches from the renaissance period showcasing a variety of architectural styles. And more recently, there is the visually stunning Fountain of Trevi, completed in 1762, and the Vittoriano monument from the early 20th century.

Because Rome is so ancient, most of the old part of the city is not laid out on a grid. The streets resemble more of a tangled spider web, with roads darting in all different directions. Parks, monuments, and historical sites abound throughout the city, interrupting the path of the roads and making it almost impossible to travel in a straight line. In this way, it’s very different from a city like Washington, DC, which was designed on an orderly grid system with museums and monuments clustered together on the National Mall. Hmm, that could make for an interesting future blog topic…

But for today, let’s look at a couple of maps of Rome. The first one is from 1642, by Matthus Merian, and it shows Rome during the glory days of the Italian Renaissance. East is at the top.

1642 Map of Rome by Matthus Merian (via wikipedia)

I linked to the highest resolution version of the map because it’s worth zooming in and really checking out all the sites. You can see the Colosseum in the upper middle, with the Roman Forum in the open space underneath. If you move down and left from the Colosseum, you can find a tall column, which is the Trajan Column commemorating the Roman Emperor Trajan’s victory in the Dacian Wars in the 2nd century A.D. The Column is still there today.

In the bottom left of the above picture is St. Peter’s Basilica, St. Peter’s Square, and the Apostolic Palace. This area, which would eventually become the Vatican, is the headquarters of the Catholic Church.

Now let’s look at a map of current-day Rome, which shows a rather similar structure to the previous map, albeit with North at the top:

Can you spot the differences and similarities? There are some additions which weren’t built in 1642, such as the large Vittoriano toward the center of the map and the Fountain of Trevi above it. But the Colosseo (Colosseum) is still in place with the Forum nearby. And on the left-hand side of the river is the familiar Citta del Vaticano, or Vatican City. Today, it is an independent country, the smallest in the world at only 0.17 square miles. How does such a small area function as an independent country, especially when surrounded completely by the city of Rome? And why is it not just part of Italy, anyway?

All good questions, and lucky C.G.P. Grey, who previously explained the anomalies of the US-Canadian border, has a youtube video which shines a light on this issue:

An exclave is a part of a political entity which is cut off from the rest of the entity by foreign entities. In its truest form, an exclave does not have access to the ocean, and it cannot be reached by land or sea except by going through another state’s territory. But there are also pene-exclaves which do partially border the sea, but are still disconnected from the rest of the political entity’s territory. The biggest such example is Alaska, but there are many more, especially at the subnational level.

These geographical curiosities all have fascinating backstories regarding their formation. Some of them have very long, complex histories involving conflicts between adjacent political units, while others resulted from extreme weather. It also worth noting that many of these exclaves are so small that they can only be seen if you really study a map in high detail.

Now without further ado, let’s honor five of the most interesting exclaves and pene-exclaves in the world.

1. The Kaliningrad Oblast (Russia):

Kaliningrad (via wikipedia)

Kaliningrad Oblast, with the principal city of Kaliningrad, is owned by Russia but separated from the rest of it. Lithuania and Poland border it, but it does have access to the Baltic Sea, making it a pene-exclave. Its sea access is the primary reason that Russia has deemed it so important to hold onto it when it took the territory from the Germans in World War II (the original name of Kaliningrad was Konigsberg).

2. The Kentucky Bend (US):

The Kentucky Bend (via wikipedia)

The so-called Kentucky Bend is an exclave of Fulton County, Kentucky, which is completely surrounded by Tennessee and Missouri. It must be inconvenient for the residents of the Bend to reach the rest of their county, but luckily only 17 people live there. This irregularity was caused by surveyors estimating where Kentucky and Tennessee would meet, with the western border of Kentucky being the Mississippi River, before a more detailed survey showed that the River bent upwards in that area. In 1811, there was also a very large earthquake that disrupted the path of the river. Tennessee and Kentucky fought over this tiny Bend for awhile, but Tennessee eventually dropped it.

3. Cabinda Province (Angola):

1977 Map of Cabinda, separated from the rest of Angola to the South (via wikipedia)

Cabinda is a pene-exclave of Angola, because it is on the Atlantic Ocean and the only way for people from Cabinda to reach the rest of Angola is through the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which used to be Zaire, as seen in the map above). Cabinda and Angola were both colonies of Portugal from 1885 until 1975, and when the colonies became independent, they formed one state. But even though Portugal administered the two territories together, they were actually occupied by unique cultural groups before colonization, and today many political leaders in Cabinda are advocating for independence from Angola.

As the map explains, Nawha is part of U.A.E., but it is surrounded by Madha (part of Oman), and Madha in turn is surrounded by U.A.E. This makes both Madha and Nahwa exclaves, as well as enclaves (territories completely surrounded by one other political entity). I am not sure why Oman and U.A.E. agreed to this complex arrangement, but luckily it affects very few people; Madha is mostly uninhabited, and Nahwa is just a small village.

Strange-looking map, huh? The Dutch town of Baarle Nassau borders the Belgian town of Baarle Hertog, and each country has several exclaves within the other country’s territory. This situation arose from a history of medieval treaties and land-swaps between various lords and dukes, but the borders were definitively settled with the Treaty of Maastricht in 1843. Luckily for tourists, the border is clearly made visible throughout the town, and the style of house numbers differs according to which country the house is located in.

Do you have a favorite exclave or enclave which I’ve left out? Drop me a comment!

The city-state of Athens was definitely the place to be from around 500 BC to 322 BC. It was a democracy that gave birth to countless intellectual and artistic achievements, from philosophy to sculpture to science. For this reason, Athens has often been referred to as the Cradle of Western Civilization.

And what did the Cradle look like? Below is a map of ancient Athens, showing the location of prominent landmarks such as the Acropolis and the Agora:

Map of Ancient Athens (via wikipedia)

The Acropolis, or “High City”, was the location for many of the city’s religious temples. The ancient Greeks paid lots of attention to their pantheon of gods, especially the goddess Athena, who was believed to be the city’s protector. The Parthenon, the most prominent temple on the Acropolis, is dedicated to her. I visited it in the fall of 2006 while studying for a semester in Athens, and although it was under restoration and I could not get too close to it, the sight of it still filled me with awe.

The Agora, meanwhile, was the marketplace of the city, and its central location reveals much about how the ancient Greeks lived. Everyone went to the marketplace to buy and sell goods, but it was also a marketplace of ideas, where philosophers and politicians alike could make speeches to the public. In an age when most people were on foot, the marketplace had to be centrally located so that all the people of the city could congregate there.

Below is another map showing the larger area of ancient Athens. In the southwest, on the ocean, is the port of Piraeus. Even today, this still serves as the major port of this region of Greece, and it can be reached by metro from Athens. In ancient times, they had to travel by foot or horse, but at least they had Long Walls to protect them from potential invading barbarians.

Athens and the Surrounding Area (via wikipedia)

One more thing to point out is the mountain to the northeast of Athens, called Lycabettus (or Lykavittos). In ancient times, this was located outside the city and was seen as a pleasant retreat from the hustle and bustle of the city. Now, however, as Athens has expanded greatly to fill the space around it, the mountain has been swallowed up by the city. The buildings of modern Athens surround it completely, although the mountain itself remains relatively scarce, though there is a chapel and a restaurant at the top. Here is what Mount Lykavittos looks like now:

Mount Lykavittos (via wikipedia)

I guess we can’t expect Athens to stay unchanged for over two thousand years, can we?

The land of Hyrule is the setting for nearly all of the games in the popular Legend of Zelda videogame series. But even though the setting stays the same, the world looks different in every game. Many regions and towns appear again and again in the Zelda games, but their locations move around. Some places expand and take on new importance, while others disappear altogether. And some games alter the world so much that it becomes completely unrecognizable. Wind Waker, for example, is set in a flooded world of scattered islands, while much of the action in Skyward Sword takes place on floating islands in the sky.

Why does the world of Hyrule change so much from game to game? It could be due to the fact that each game in the series is set in a different generation, with a new Link becoming the hero in each one. Maybe events that occur in between games cause the topography of the world to change and towns to be relocated. But more likely, the creators of a new game in the series just want to remake the world so the experience feels new and interesting. As much fun as the Zelda games are, it would eventually get boring to play in the exact same world again and again.

Anyway, today I want to compare the maps in two different Zelda games: A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. A Link to the Past came out in 1991 for SNES, and Ocarina of Time came out in 1998 for the Nintendo 64. Technology changed quite a bit in the intervening years. Ocarina of Time moved the franchise from 2-D to 3-D, allowing bigger, more complex worlds. For the first time, Link could explore the world at his eye level, rather than the top-down view of A Link to the Past.

The graphics in A Link to the Past would be primitive by today’s standards, but the game is undoubtedly a classic due to its creative gameplay. Hyrule is in fact split in two between the Light World (seen above), and the Dark World. Link can travel between the two worlds to solve puzzles, finding that the shape of the land is generally the same, but there are important differences between them. For example, where there is a desert in the Light World is a marsh called Misery Mire in the Dark World.

And now for the map from Ocarina of Time, which shows a very different Hyrule:

Notice that many of these places are familiar, such as Lake Hylia, the Lost Woods, and Hyrule Castle. However, they have all moved their location and changed their appearance. There are also new places which didn’t exist before, such as Gerudo’s Valley in the West, although it somewhat resembles the Desert of Mystery from A Link to the Past. The Hyrule of Ocarina of Time is more expansive, and for the first time, Link has the ability to ride a horse across the central field to get between locations. The evolution of the world from game to game has also given Link access to a boat to sail between islands in Wind Waker and a bird to fly between floating islands in Skyward Sword.

That will be all for our videogame cartography lesson today… stay tuned for the next installment!

Today, in honor of America’s birthday of July 4, 1776, I found a map that was made in the same year showing what the colonies and the surrounding land looked like as the American Revolution began.

The Bonne Map of Louisiana and the British Colonies in North America

Drawn by the Frenchman Rigobert Bonne, the map shows the British colonies that would become the first 13 states of the United States in the east, the British holdings in Canada to the north and west, the French territory of Louisiana west of the Mississippi, and beyond that, the Spanish territory of Mexico. The east coast is mostly accurate, though southern Florida, where the everglades are, is depicted as an archipeligo, and Lake Superior is given some fictional islands. It is also interesting to note the number of Native American names that can be found inland, many of which would be replaced by English names in the future.

Anyway, don’t spend today inside reading a blog, go out and enjoy the weather! Happy 4th of July everyone!